HS swimming: WHS freshman brings home state title

Thursday

Feb 16, 2017 at 7:45 PM

Jay Pinsonnault jpinsonnault@seacoastonline.com @JayPinceSMG

The Winnacunnet High School swim program saw one of its freshman bring home an individual state championship on Saturday at the Division II swim meet at Swasey Pool on the campus of the University of New Hampshire.

Another swimmer placed third in one event and fourth in another, and the Warriors also broke four team records.

However, the highlight for Winnacunnet coach Jim Patterson was something different.

“We brought our largest team to the state meet in the history of the program, and we had the most state qualifiers,” Patterson said. “We swam in 25 events, and 23 had personal best times. We surprised a lot of teams. The kids performed extremely strong and showed up ready to swim. We are extremely happy with the results. We had strong senior leadership in Isabelle (Domingos) and Tyler (Roberts) and we had a bunch of underclassmen that filled in the mix.”

Anne Rademacher completed her stellar freshman season with a state championship in the 500 freestyle in a time of 5 minutes, 6.75 seconds which eclipsed her own school record. She also took second in the 200 individual medley (2:10.81), breaking her own school record.

“The first week of practice we were pleasantly surprised (in what Rademacher could do in the pool),” Patterson said. “It was great to see a freshman come in as skilled as she was. Obviously, winning a state championship is incredible, especially being a freshman; it was an impressive win.”

Junior Josh Roberts placed third in the 100 backstroke (57.73) and was fourth in the 200 freestyle (1:52.8).

Both the boys and girls set two school relay records.

The quartet of freshman Haillie Figueroa-Duarte, junior Sadie Gaskell, Domingos, and junior Jamie Roy placed eighth in the 200 freestyle (1:51.15), while the team of Rademacher, junior Sydney Cestone, Domingos and Gaskell placed eighth in the 400 freestyle (4:02.82).

On the boys side, the team of Josh Roberts, senior Connor Murray, sophomore Evan Domingos and senior Tyler Roberts placed third in the 200 freestyle relay in a time of 1:37.78, while Josh Roberts, Evan Domingos, sophomore Anthony Daniels and Tyler Roberts was third in the 400 freestyle relay (3:41.37).

“We surprised a lot of teams and coaches with those two boys relay teams,” Patterson said. “We did the math going in, and knew if the kids were up and ready and swimming at their best we knew we had a shot at surprising some teams there. The boys 400 free relay was seeded high going into states, but both the girls and boys 200 free relays really surprised some people. There were coaches from other teams (after the boys 200 free relay) saying ‘Wow where did you guys from?' we were pretty happy with that.”

Tyler Roberts placed eighth in the 100 breaststroke (1:09.74) and ninth in the 100 freestyle (54.22), while Murray was 10th in the 50 freestyle (24.77).

The Winnacunnet boys placed seventh in the 21-team field, while the girls placed 10th out of 22.

“There are teams like Oyster River and St. Thomas that show up there with 20 kids and it’s hard to compete on total points with that,” Patterson said. “But person for person, the size of our team and for scoring as well as we did, and putting people on the medal podium, we were happy with that.”

Rademacher and Figueroa-Duarte, both freshmen, were first and second, respectively, this season in points.

“(Figueroa-Duarte) had a great season,” Patterson said. “I don’t want anything she accomplished this year to be overlooked. She qualified in multiple state events and was the leadoff swimmer in our record-setting 200 free relay. We were happy with our freshman class for the girls team and kind of excited to see what the next three or four years are going to look like here at Winnacunnet swimming.”

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